Maybe the Boy Scouts should change their motto from “Be Prepared” to “No Homo,” since they seem so preoccupied with keeping gay kids out. Earlier this week, the organization doubled down on its “no avowed homosexuals policy,” expelling an Eagle Scout after he came out and reaffirming their commitment to perpetuating the myth that in order to be gay, you have to take a vow of some kind. I solemnly swear to use my Scouts uniform in a super dirty gay strip tease for my boyfriend. You know. A homosexual vow.
The Scouts recommitted to their longstanding policy by clarifying that they’re not trying to have an anti-gay witch hunt — boys who are gay are free to keep it a secret! — but that allowing openly homosexual boys to participate in scouts or allowing openly homosexual adults to serve as troop or den leaders would be a distraction to the mission of the organization. The policy non-change was the culmination of a multi-year exploration by the Boy Scouts, who in 2010 formed an 11-person committee to consider the possibility of changing their policy. The end result of that investigation was NO.
Here’s a great example of that policy at work: in the last few days, Eagle Scout and Missouri camp counselor Eric Johnson told his superiors that he was gay, and was summarily dismissed from his role. Never mind the years of work he must have put in to earn his Eagle Scout title (even though the name’s a little Duck Tales, it’s a serious accomplishment) or the service he’d already provided the camp. You’re out? You’re out.
Boy Scouts are a private organization with rights of self determination and bla bla bla, but keeping gay kids out is a categorically shitty move. Gay kids want to go camping and learn valuable skills, too, and in an age where a man’s more likely to be able to give you herpes than fix a sink, the sort of self-reliance survival skills kids could learn from Scouts could end up serving the next generation well. It’s too bad that the Scouts, in deciding to continue to cling to outdated social views, have all but sealed their inevitable social irrelevance. A better organization will take its place, and the great Darwinian circle of organizational life will carry on.
At least they don’t make cookies.
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Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
